Indonesia may use crocodiles to guard death row prisoners

What makes crocodiles the perfect prison guards? It’s not their speed on land and water, the gargantuan power of their jaws or those teeth.

It’s the fact they can’t be bribed.

Indonesia’s anti-drugs chief Budi Waseso has proposed building a prison on an island that will hold death row drug convicts and would be guarded by the creatures.

We will place as many crocodiles as we can there. I will search for the most ferocious type of crocodile.

You can’t bribe crocodiles. You can’t convince them to let inmates escape.

He’s right, you can’t.

But he’s clearly never seen Octopussy.

Indonesia has some of the toughest anti-drugs laws in the world. Traffickers are routinely shot by firing squad yet president Joko Widodo insists there is a ‘national emergency’ because of the rising use of narcotics.

The anti-drugs agency is discussing the Bond villain prison with the justice ministry because the current prison system is highly corrupt. Both inmates and guards are regularly arrested on drugs offences.

But given that traffickers are skilled in, well, trafficking, there might be some interesting crocodile smuggling related escape stories coming out of the country soon.

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Emily Badiozzaman

Emily is a freelance writer for Shortlist.com. She covers breaking news, entertainment, style and lifestyle for the site. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found eating and drinking or thinking about food and drinking. Follow Emily on Twitter: @ebadiozzaman